As the controversy about the Children and Social Work Bill reached a crux and crescendo, with the government apparently doing a U-turn to water down some (but not all) of its intentions to politically control the profession of social work, and with the House of Lords voting against the (subsequently abandoned) plans that the Secretary of State for Education should be able to decide to set aside key parts of children’s legislation, it is timely to reflect on who has been advising ministers and advocating for government policy. So here is a Who’s Who of many of the key players. What is notable is how few there are, how widely they network with each other, and overall how little experience they have in social work practice or its direct management.

The Chief Social Worker

Isabelle Trowler is the Chief Social Worker for Children and Families and the primary professional senior civil service advisor to the government on social work with children. She was appointed in 2013 after the preferred candidate, following a full extensive and elongated civil service recruitment process, was not accepted by ministers. Michael Gove was Secretary of State for Education at the time. The recommendation of the government-commissioned and social work-led Social Work Task Force, and of the Munro review of child protection, was that there should be one chief social worker for England to advise government about social work and to be a social work champion. Ministers decided in 2013, however, to split the chief social worker role, and that there should be two separate chief social workers, one in the Department for Education (DfE) and one in the Department of Health. This caused subsequent concern to the House of Commons Education Select Committee:

Despite the confidence of the Minister and the Chief Social Worker for Children and Families, we are concerned that the DfE and DH agendas are not coordinated, and the profession is being pulled in two different directions. There is a pressing need for greater coordination within Government on the future of social work in England. The splitting of the profession into two separate strands has been unhelpfully divisive. The appointment of two Chief Social Workers, apparently against the wishes of the profession, has exacerbated the problem …